'_Abide in me_' is doubtless a command; but it is supported by the other clause, '_and I in you_.' 'Rest in me as if you were united to me; and a living power shall go forth from me to sustain and quicken you. And all this that you may _bear fruit_.' That part of the symbol is never for a moment lost sight of. The relation of the branch to the stem implies the passage of a productive life from one into the other. The secret processes within are tending to a result which shall be visible. Christ tells them that they can bear nothing, that they will be utterly barren and dry, unless they retain their attachment to Him, unless He communicates a sap to them continually. He is not satisfied with the comparison; He again puts the doctrine into a more direct form, as if to assure them that He was not using metaphors, that He was taking the most direct method of bringing before them that which was not real but _the_ reality, not _a_ fact, but _the_ fact of their existence. '_I am the Vine, ye are the branches._' 'The energies and powers within you, when I quicken them, shall bring forth thoughts, deeds, words, that shall be living, and shall spread life. Without me all is dead.' The last clause has brought the law home to the disciples themselves; but the former was more general: '_He that abideth in me, and I in him_.' And so is the 6th verse: '_Except a man_' (any one) '_abide in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned_.' That 'any one' gives the sentence a fearful significance. Let us think well of it. Have we never felt as if, though no voice had cut us off from the fellowship of our brethren, we had cut ourselves off? Have we never felt an internal withering, as if the springs of life in us were all dried up? What was the secret of this condition, which we could trace to no outward violence? Or do we ask, 'What is the cure? How may that separation be put an end to before it becomes fixed and everlasting? How may that secret withering be arrested before it ends in absolute death?' The evil is traced to its source when we are told that we have not abided in Him; the remedy lies in that command, and in no other. The dead sticks are gathered into a bundle and burnt. But the sap has not gone out of the Vine; that may still make the bough to sprout and bud.